The 1991 Fire

It's fire season. I'm really concerned, since the recent heat wave crisped all of the vegetation on the hills and slopes that surround our house. And it's the anniversary of the big fire. I can't see that I've written about it, but pardon me if I have.

The day of the fire I was working at the restaurant. It was warm, with a wind that kept blowing leaves inside the restaurant. We kept chasing them out. We heard there was a fire in the hills. After a few hours, a regular customer came running in, asking to use our phone. Her house had just gone up in flames.

We kept serving pancakes.

Eventually our power went out. We kept working and I don't feel as if our boss had a plan to let us go home. The fire continued to advance toward us, but we couldn't see how close it was was because of the big hotel across the street that blocked our view of the hill behind it. When the fire trucks wanted to use our street as parking I ran.

The sky was orange. The fire was not that close as I left, but it still felt scary. I remember seeing the reflection of a big red sun in the chrome bumper of the car in front of me. I drove across the bay to the safety of our apartment. At a bbq on our side of the bay, I heard that pages of the telephone book from the firestorm floated down on our friends. At mrguy's recording studio, as well.

People I knew lost everything. One customer attending a convention on the other coast, watched the news from afar. She'd taken her favorite jewelry with her. Her husband thrived, in a way. He was able to design them a new home, and felt unburdened by the loss of "things".

Another couple couldn't get back across the bay in time. They called their neighbor and asked him to break in and get their dog. They, also, did well -- confessing that when they had the keys to their rebuilt house they had sex in every room.

There were customers who we never saw again. I still think of them. And others that trauma turned into complete monsters. They wanted special treatment, discounts, and brought up the kinds of conflict that I don't deal with well and wasn't authorized to address.

It's been thirty years. This is the story I always tell. Many people dressed as the Firestorm for Halloween that year.